We're not really mad geniuses. We're just a little miffed

Think before hitting enter

by Amanda on June 11, 2017

For the longest time, writers were told there were several things you didn’t talk about in public: politics and religion. Publishers and agents didn’t want you to for fear you might alienate potential readers. Going hand-in-hand with that was the unwritten rule that you didn’t attack or criticize another author in public. After all, the time might come when you and that author shared an agent or a publisher. Then there was the potential of alienating fans of that author, fans who might have become your fans. In other words, writers were expected to basically act as if they were sitting down to Sunday dinner with the family when it came to what face they presented to the reading public.

I’m not going to talk about writers and politics, except possibly as a side issue today. This post is about stopping and thinking about how what you do will impact fans and potential fans. Why? Because over the last few weeks, I’ve seen more examples of writers behaving badly than I want to think about. The last few days especially have been rife with examples. Several, unfortunately, stood out because they can negatively impact not just the authors involved but all indie authors.

Let’s face it, as indies, we face an uphill battle until we start making a name for ourselves. Even then, we have to continue working hard to not only court our readers but put out a quality product. I daresay most of us don’t want to be labelled as the next Norman B., an author who will take exception to anything he feels is a negative review of his work. We don’t want to be painted with the same brush as those who plagiarize work by other authors or those who don’t believe an editor and proofreader would help improve their work.

We have to not only put out the best work possible, we have to worry about making sure we have cover art that is 1) duly licensed or purchased and 2) reads well for the genre and in thumbnail. We have to make sure our blurbs are the best they can be. We have to promote our own work as well — something traditionally published authors also have to do because traditional publishers aren’t spending as much per title on promotion as they used to.

If you go to Amazon and browse through the various genres, you will sooner or later come across covers that are the same or close to the same. This happens because most indies license their cover art elements from sites like Dreamstime or Adobe Stock. It’s a cheap way to find good art that fits the genre. The danger is you are only licensing the artwork and not buying it. That means others can license it as well.

Even so, there are restrictions on how that artwork can be used. This is from the Adobe Stock standard license language:

With a Standard license, you may not:

Create more than 500,000 copies of the image in print, digital documents, software, or by broadcasting to more than 500,000 viewers.

Create products for resale where the main value of the product is the image itself. For example, you can’t use the asset to create a poster, t-shirt, or coffee mug that someone would buy specifically because of the image printed on it.

You also can’t post the image in such a way that others can use it without first licensing it. If you do, you are in violation of the license and the copyright holder can come after you for damages and Adobe Stock can revoke your use of their site.

So, what about book covers? When can we post a cover? If it’s one for artwork you’ve licensed, you can post it or use it in promotional material as long as you aren’t in violation of the license. In other words, you can do it up to half a million times — including each time your book or short story is sold. So you have to keep an eye on that. You can print flyers and postcards, digital or hard copy, describing your book and showing the cover. Reviewers can post a copy of the cover image as part of their review. If there is a book you want to recommend to someone, you can post that as well.

Where the line blurs and you need to think twice before hitting enter is when you start using the cover image of another author’s book in promotional materials and say “If you liked this, you will like my book.” The problem with this sort of promo is that you are using someone else’s work, specifically the cover art, for your own financial gain. To get around that, you need to ask the publisher for permission. Many publishers even have a handy link so you can do just that.

Please note that the problem isn’t in comparing your work with another author’s work. The problem is in using copyrighted material for your own financial benefit.

Now, before anyone jumps the gun and starts yelling about fair use, I’ll remind you that fair use is limited. For a very good discussion of it, check out this post by Nitay Arbel.

But there is something else to consider, something beyond the potential legal headaches that can come from using someone else’s cover in your promo materials without permission. You, as an author, are saying something about yourself when you do that. To other authors and publishers, you are telling them that, at best, you are too lazy to do your own homework and research if what you’re doing is legit or not. Falling back on “but so-and-so does it”. To readers, you risk alienating them, especially if you are the one making the comparison between your book and one of their favorite authors.

If you use another author’s book covers in your promo materials, especially well-loved books, and then mock the books or the author in the comparison to your own work, well, that’s a keg of explosives you really don’t want to light. It doesn’t matter if you think the books are inane or stupid or that they “sparkle”. What matters is that tens of thousands of readers loved those books and you have just insulted them as well as the books and the author. Do you really want to go there?

And, if you have done so without getting permission to use the covers, you have opened the door to the publisher saying you have cast a negative shadow on their product. If you’re like me, you don’t have the deep pockets required to fight them and force them to prove damages. Sure, they’ll probably send a cease and desist letter first but they might also take a page from some music publishers’ book and go straight for damages.

In other words, stop and think before hitting the button. Yes, you can in your promo material say your book is similar to another author’s book. You can even say how your book is different from another author’s book. But you need to ask permission before using the cover of that book, especially if you are using it in a negative manner.

If you are an indie author, you have to use common sense. You have to do your homework. That homework needs to be done BEFORE you do something, not after. Why? Because your actions impact more than just you. They impact your fans. They also impact every other indie author out there. Think about it. We fight against the image that we are all hacks who can’t get past the traditional gatekeepers. We fight against the image that we don’t have our work edited and proofread. We fight against the image that all our covers suck and stick figures would look better. Don’t add that we have to fight against the thoughtless, or at least the lack of thought, actions of our fellow indies.

Now, go read the licensing agreements you have committed to with regard to your cover art. Re-read — or read for the first time — the terms of service for each of the sales platforms you work through. Check to make sure you have licenses for the fonts you use not only on your covers but for your interior text file. Be a professional where your work is concerned.

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Good stuff. We haven’t had any recent encounters with the writer whose moniker starts with M, have we? Am almost glad I’m missing the dramas sleeping from bouts of sick. (Flu; then cold; then dry coughs. Yay. Winter is officially here.)

I’m thinking of authors whose last name starts with S, and then there’s S, and another S name, then there’s D, all raving that everything is political.

I’m saving money all over the place, not buying the latest and greatest from all kinds of propaganda writers. Thanks for the heads up, i09!

Actually I haven’t bought a book in a really long time. Since before Christmas I think. I used to buy two or three ever week or so. Now, I just don’t read them. I’ve got a stack of five un-read books around here somewhere, gathering dust.

“For the longest time, writers were told there were several things you didn’t talk about in public: politics and religion.”

If only that were still true. These days “everything is political” has become the rule with a lot of people. There’s a couple of big name Canadian SF writers going around explicitly saying exactly those words lately. I’ve seen it repeated over and over.

Leaving aside my emotional reaction, which was loud, profane and involved lots of spit, when you say stuff like “everything is political” what that means is that you are no longer an SF/F writer. You are writing propaganda disguised as speculative or fantasy fiction.

I think its rather good of them to come out and self-identify like that. Now I don’t have to bother with anything they write, in perpetuity. So many Name authors are doing things like that lately, and so many big publishers are doing it. They are making it clear that Pop Culture as produced by them is no longer “mere” entertainment, it is elevated by being turned to the noble purpose of Leftist propaganda.

Sales numbers seem to support that notion. Who wants to read some political screed for entertainment? If all I’m getting in a pocket book is “TRUMP IS EEEEEEVILE!!!!1!” then I will not be buying any. Times half the population, that equals where we are right now.

As to intellectual property, there’s a simple rule of thumb I go by: Don’t Steal Stuff. If I didn’t write it, draw it, photograph it or pay money for it, it isn’t mine. Some nice pic that’s on the web somewhere, that is not mine to use unless I buy it.

However, your advice on fonts and comparisons using other people’s covers is well taken. Who thinks about the license to use the fricking typeface that came with your word processor program? But there is one, for sure, and I don’t know what it says! So I better go look.

As literary ideas and influences can be traced by comprehensively reading stories, so too can political ideas and influences be traced. The everything is politics folks probably don’t much vary outside of a certain range. Very likely to be classified as part of the echo chamber for the the soviet tyranny’s propaganda. Judging purely by the politics, I don’t see any redeeming features to that butchery.

I don’t much like anyone’s politics. Some days I don’t like my own. Someone typically does better in my eyes if they allow me to evaluate them on grounds other than politics.

One of my favorite hard SF fired fans with Puppy sympathies last year. I will admit I will miss him but he’s moved on from the world that hooked me initially and I’m finding more and more indie to my liking so I won’t miss him so much I am forced to go back.

Yeah, I got a nasty surprise when the premade cover of my first Mil-Sf novel used art that also appeared in an older novel. I got a one-star review from someone who thought I had stolen the cover (I explained the situation and the reviewer was nice enough to remove it, but still). Have to be careful there.
I think using other people’s titles isn’t the best idea, myself, even if no artwork is involved. At best, the writer comes across as presumptuous and cocky, and that may turn off potential readers. And using other people’s covers in ads (or on Twitter troll posts for that matter) without authorization isn’t a great idea, either. Yes, an indie will probably only get a cease and desist letter, but you never know when a publisher can decide to make an example and subject you to a ruinous suit.
Even though I don’t make a secret of my political views, I don’t go around rubbing them in people’s faces, either. My blog is all writing related. I don’t virtua-signal, and I don’t go posting on other people’s feeds looking for fights. I think something like Sarah’s blog is great, and I envy her energy dealing with the trolls that show up over there. If I tried to do likewise, I don’t think I’d have enough left in me to write novels, though.

The time might be coming I don’t venture into those grounds, on purely personal grounds. I’ve been on a cycle of severe auto-immune attacks every two months, and I might have to figure out a way to lower stress. I do think I’m needed, and I don’t think I write mostly (or primarily) politics, I just write whatever interests me at the time. BUT I I have to figure out a way not to have open wounds all over my body, and problems breathing. Else, I have to quit the blog. if I do, I’ll probably continue writing for PJmedia, because I don’t battle comments there.

Yikes. Yes, that’s totally understandable. I can feel my blood pressure rising every time I get even partially embroiled in one of those brouhahas, so no way I could get in the weeds full time. And in the end fiction writing is a better-paying use of one’s time. Hope your health improves!

This is the kind of article that reminds me why copyright is evil, and should be done away with altogether. It doesn’t matter, though, if this is literally true: dealing with being sued hurts just the same, regardless of the morality of copyright law, and furthermore, the “don’t be a jerk, don’t be stupid” advice doesn’t have to have legal backing (and some of the advice given here *doesn’t* have legal backing) to nonetheless be a good idea.

I’m deeply surprised that free use doesn’t apply to using an image of a book that is meant to make the book more identifiable, to refer to the book, regardless why the book is being identified. Of course, if it’s merely the case that this hasn’t been tested in court (I haven’t yet read the article linked to on fair use), it’s not fun being the case that establishes free use, particularly since the standard has mostly been carved out one expensive case at a time.

Why do you hate authors getting paid? Because when you say “Copyright is evil” you’re saying that anyone can steal their work and give it away for free. Of course, they do that all the time anyway. There are Russian pirate sites that will have any decently-selling book available for download within a week after release.

we live longer. It’s not fair for the author of a popular book to have no support in old age. We are not covered by any retirement policies. But “till author’s death” is good enough for me. My kids can make their own fargin money.

I tend to agree with you about the kids. (Although… there is undoubtedly a tiny minority of writers with kids that cannot make their own fargin money; severely disabled and so on. Plus the untimely deaths, where the children are still minors.)

I would want copyright to last at least until my wife’s death, though. (I’m thinking right now of Virginia Heinlein – her life was definitely better with Robert’s royalties still coming in to the trust.)

Perhaps, although more complicated, something like “Until the deaths or competent majority of all persons listed on the final tax return as spouse and/or dependents.”

Except the problem with copyright was pushed by a wife. Current copyright is in the Sony Bono act pushed by his wife, and heir, to extend it to live plus 70.

That was a compromise. She wanted eternity and when informed the Constitution required a finite time she wanted eternity minus one day.

While I get Sarah’s old age point I think we need to dial back further than the life of the author. Copyright wasn’t enshrined in the Constitution to benefit writers or musicians or painters. Also, as an employee I do not have a legal right to compel my employer to pay me for my job after I cease to do it. While not a perfect analogy lifetime copyright seems to be a similar idea (although see below).

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

The purpose is promote progress of science and useful arts. I am not sure a lifetime exclusive right fits that as it could encourage sidelinging of effort. Certainly patent, much shorter than copyright, has not needed routine extension.

One idea I have heard from a coworker is a fixed free period, say 20 to 40 years, then paid renewable periods of an increased schedule. A second period of the same term would have a fixed cost published by the Library of Congress (or other designated agency…that’s just who runs copyright now) which remained true for a giving copyright. Ie, if the term is 20 years then in 2017 when you register for copyright you know the cost in 2037 to renew. The cost for the 2057 renewal is published in 2037 so you know ahead and so on.

This idea tries to at balance between the moral right of a creator to control his works and the fact that intellectual property as an enforcable right does rely on public support via the law in ways physical property does not and can be “stolen” without the exact same form of damages physical property entails (although such theft is real and not victimless as some contend).

It would allow things to go into the common as grist when the creator no longer finds them profitable instead of locking them up effectively forever (right now a publisher at 20 easily locks copyright for a century and a half barring accident). I think it harkens back to the purpose and intent of Article I.

Also, copyright needs to be fixed at the point it is obtained. If we decide life plus 70 is good it should not be applied to things nearly a century in the past. Copyright when you produce the item should hold. Allowing these extensives IMHO violates the “limited time” requirement.

As for that initial fixed term I think it needs to be at least 19 year: sufficient for a creator who impregnates someone the day copyright is obtained to support that progeny through to age of majority. I would also forbid more than one post death renewal and perhaps even one if the author has been dead more than half the prior renewal’s length.

So modify it so that after the initial period while the author is alive they get 10% of the gross profits of all IPs using their copyright up to 70% of the profits of works using IPs from multiple creators at which point the percentage is divided equally among more than 7 creators. Also make it so that copyright length only applies to people selling copies of their work or licensing their IP to others who do so. Those who do not have full copyright of their work till they die or if explicitly transferred in their will to another person that person can kick off the time limit if they ever start selling/licensing.

I’ve been leaning towards 50 years, non-renewable. Yes, I acknowledge that that would mean that If you write an immensely popular book when you’re 20, then write nothing else, the income would stop when you’re 70. But that’s foreseeable, and if you put money away for retirement rather than spending it all as it comes in, then you’re in exactly the same boat as the average salaried worker is. So 50 years doesn’t seem to me to be too short to be fair. And it’s also not so long as to be ridiculous: under a 50-year copyright regime, Casablanca would have gone public-doamin in 1942 — and the original Star Wars movie would go public-domain in 2027, ten years from now. Which would mean that ANYONE, not just Disney, could now make films in that universe. Imagine the creativity that could happen there!

So 50 years feels to me like a good balance between the right of the author to get paid for their work, and the “common good” argument of not letting good works fall into nothingness because the copyright-owning corporation decides not to sell it. C.f. Song of the South, which Disney wants to toss down the memory hole because it’s un-PC. The only way I’ll ever hear the famous “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” song in its original context is if I violate copyright law and get hold of a bootleg copy somewhere. That song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, but the copyright holder won’t let anyone see the movie it came from. At some hard-to-define point that becomes a crime against history. 50 years isn’t particularly better than 70 years, but it’s a nice, easy-to-remember number.

And the reason I favor a fixed number like 50 years instead of “until the death of the author” is because: a) it’s predictable, and b) if the author writes something at age 70 then dies at 75, it still lets his/her heirs benefit from the proceeds for another 45 years. For some authors, that’s really important — and in fact, it’s how the current system (death of the author + X years) got started. Death of the author + X years sounds good in theory, but in practice we all know how abused it has been. So the best way I can see to ensure that authors can pass on the benefit of their written-late-in-life work to their heirs, while still ensuring that the system is simple and predictable, is to go for a fixed term. 50 years seems about right to me, though I wouldn’t object to 75 since people are living longer. But more than 75 years would start to get into the realm of “too long”, IMHO.

Actually, the real abuse IMHO is post-facto extensions. If the copyright can be extended by Congress for existing works, as opposed to lengthen the term for works yet to be created, then the limited time part of Article 1 is moot.

Lessing had a shot at the argument in front of the SCUS and you can hear Kennedy all but begging him to make it but Lessing tried to undo extensions via Freedom of Speech. He has since admitted that was stupid.

I don’t have anything against artists and writers getting paid; I have merely learned that copyright law doesn’t necessarily ensure that artists get paid, and the law could even be a hindrance to getting paid. A big reason for this is that copyright and patent disputes aren’t just expensive for the defendants.

It took an entire book (“Against Intellectual Monopoly”) and a lot of individual articles to convince me of this, which is why I try not to argue the case in comment sections now-a-days. That isn’t to say I haven’t tried in times past, but it also takes a lot of energy to make the case, and a lot of time all that happens is that it generates excessive heat.

Hence my assertion that copyright is evil, but it’s also the law, and thus needs to be followed regardless.

If you do away with copyright, then you do away with writing, well any GOOD writing, because why would anyone waste the time if they’re not getting paid? Food doesn’t appear on the table auto-magically. Same for the table it sits on, or the house it sits in.
And you would do away with any new music, because why would anyone write songs if they aren’t going to make a living off of it?
Movies? Nope, kiss those goodbye, those suckers cost a lot to make, and well, if you’re not going to be earning anything, you won’t be making anything.

For that matter, what about text books in college and school? Who will write those, and -why-? Computer programs? Games? Art? Anything at all that takes ANY amount of creativity?

Textbooks already are rewritten after 1-2 for monetary reasons, the used textbook market kills sales of new editions in 1-2 years, without copyright helping.

As for copyright being required for new music or writing I would point out that copyright is less than six centuries old and initially did nothing for creators but was a royal license controlling who could print something not to ensure the creator was paid.

You are describing a problem that *can* be solved by copyright but one neither copyright was initially created to solve (and one can argue current copyright law is designed to retard to creation as much as encourage it) nor does it mean copyright is the only solution to that problem.

Yes, imagine if Shakespeare had written more than one play but sadly due to lack of copyright he didn’t bother.

Oh, wait, he did write more than one in an era without copyright protections.

In fact, for the majority of the 16th and 17th century printers, not creators, controlled the ability for a book to be in the registry of authorized books to be printed. While we start to see some changes to this in the 1660s it isn’t until after 1700 that the first copyright act in modern form whose purpose was to encourage the creation of materials, was passed in the UK.

That means by your logic no great Elizabethan or Jacobean theater was ever written. Nor was “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. Not to mention all those works Defoe and Swift didn’t write until 1710 because of lack of copyright protection.

Copyright is a tool and until recently a very useful one, to encourage the creation of new works. However, it is not an absolutely necessary one. It can also be a tool to encourage creators, and their heirs, to cease creation.

Your statement was without copyright there was no incentive to create because there was no payment.

Now that I’ve given you examples to the contrary you are moving the goalposts.

You would do much better showing why copyright provides WIDER incentives (one that is fairly easy to make) instead of it provides the only incentives.

Abuse of copyright (more by the recorded music industry where the creators are not the beneficiaries) is where the “get rid of it” mindset arises. Easily refuted arguments and goalpost moving only reinforce the idea that it is only used for abuse and not incentive.

I would add that before America recognized oerseas copyrights, British authors would typically make more money from the American market, because publishers would scramble to be the first to get a popular author’s manuscripts.

For my most recent book, Mistress of the Waves, I paid iirc Getty and included an acknowledgement to the artist. It was a fine nautical painting. For the others I trusted my publisher, Third Millennium. I did ask about copyright of facial likeness on the cover of my first book, This Shining Sea, and was assured that it was covered.

Go to the lengths necessary so that, if you start selling like hotcakes with bacon, no one has any reason to want to cash in on part of that. Then hope you do well enough to hit that half-million copies of an image limit.

Having to pay for a license to use a font also reminds you to brand your work – with that font.

The operant phrase here is “without permission”. I have taken part in several promotions that have featured covers of other books. A lot of indies pool resources to create a joint promotion. There are also book bundles and such. If you are networking with authors who write works similar to yours (and if you’re self-published, you should be) there are many ways that you can promote your work to fans of other authors, and vice versa.

But fergoodnessake, talk to the other authors first. You don’t know what kind of deal they have made with their cover designer. You don’t know if they have another promotion planned that could get confused with what you are planning. If someone approaches me and says they want to use my covers in an ad for their books to try to interest fans of my work I would be flattered and, as it happens, I designed my own covers using photography done by my roommate and copyrighted under her name.

But let’s talk strategy. Let’s see if we can work this both ways, and maybe coordinate a bigger push than either of us could manage together. Granted, you’re not going to get the same level of response from Mr. Hugename whose audience you really want, but you probably don’t want to talk to Mr. Hugename’s lawyers, either.

Another thing to keep in mind (speaking from the artist’s side here) is to ask what you can and cannot do as modification of the artwork you license. I’ve seen writers take perfectly serviceable art and then apply their ‘artistic’ sensibilities, which when combined with an incomplete understanding of the various computer tools (photoshop) results in a badly mangled cover.

A badly mangled cover that has the artist’s name on it.

Now, the artist can no longer use it for advertising purposes (because it’s mangled), plus there’s the very real possibility that they’re going to get slammed on both sides. The writer will have slammed the artist when saying the writer had to modify the cover (seen that a few times), then if the artist objects the writer (being often better with words) will slam them with much erudition. Neither comes out looking good, but I think the artist takes the bigger ding to their professional reputation. People expect writers to be less good at art, but the artist being called out for ‘bad art’, well, they’re supposed to be good at it.

What some artists have done is offer modifications to the writer’s specs as part of purchase of otherwise stock art. You pay a little more but you get it closer to how you want it while maintaining a good relationship with the artist.
Others have included wording in the contract about who can and can’t modify the artwork and how much it can be modified.

Makes total sense to me but I’ve seen a couple of writers absolutely butthurt when they saw those clauses in the contract they got from the artists. Probably because the writers had a reputation for doing things like that and the artists were trying to protect themselves.

I modify the Jack Wylder covers VERY slightly for the ebook size to fit in Amazon (it’s perfect for the PAPER size.) I just usually clone a strip on top and bottom, but really, you can’t SEE it even at maximum enlargement.

I used to listen to a podcast about a certain woman not being dead. Then, in one recent episode, they inserted non sequitur rants about how Trump is evil and scary, and that global warming will kill us all.

Global warming isn’t going to kill anyone. The steps we should take if global warming were real would.

Paris accord is a farce. Either man caused global warming is a fraud, and the Paris accord is pointless unless you are profiting from it. Or it is not fraud, and the most viable path to a workable solution is mass murder. We can revisit the question of appropriate remedies after we no longer have to worry about the enforcement problems posed by the existence of Indians, Chinese, Iranians, Canadians, Mexicans, French, Germans, Swedes, Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish, Norse, Danish, Icelanders, Spanish, Swiss, Austrians, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenians, Romanians, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Russians, Burmans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese, and Arabs. Some others that I’ve forgotten. I didn’t overlook the Finns, Estonians, and Hungarians, they’re all right.

That’s not entirely true. We also have the option of seeding the atmosphere with various compounds that we have not clue the long term effects of which would cause a short term cooling effects.

Course, any actual viable solution is going to have to be atmospheric processors that can be scaled up to process quadrillions to hundreds of quadrillions of air depending on their efficiency and remove CO2 from the air. that would requires sufficient amounts of power, which means significant advancements in IFR and LFTR tech and the propagation across the world thereof.

removing all of that CO2 from the air would kill all the plants and the plankton in the seas. Then we’d all die.
Also, any attempts to promote global cooling will just guarantee that the little ice age we appear to be heading into, because of the current solar minimum, will become a much more destructive one.
Global warming is good. It has always been good, it has never been bad.
Global cooling is bad. It has always been bad, it has never been good, and it kills like 80 percent of everything on the planet.

Right on. We’re actually on a break in an ice-age, or at least that’s what appears to be true.
Humanity prospers during warm periods, dies off curing cold periods. So the left, who hates people, wants us all dead. Anyone surprised?

I’m not suggesting the atmospheric processors be used to remove all the CO2 from the air. Merely to stop the year over year increase. But any solution that is significantly scalable will probably have horrible efficiency, and thus have to process lots and lots of air just to cancel out any anthropogenic increase of CO2.

Have you ever looked at what percentage of the atmosphere is CO2? It’s incredibly tiny. And the amount of ‘growth’ in it is minuscule. There really isn’t a problem. They people who are claiming that there is, are lying.

I never said it didn’t. Stop being an ass. I said it’s still expensive. They’re trying to cut costs, but it is far and away from becoming cheap. It’s twelve thousand dollars per -pound- to put something in low earth orbit, that’s the cheapest price point there is. The space shuttle (if I recall correctly) did it for less to higher orbits.
So price to get into orbit has actually been -increasing- not decreasing. It is just hoped that as these companies improve that prices will go down.